


Paper Flowers Never Wilt

by TheWordsInMyHead



Series: Art Mimics Life Mimics Art [1]
Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Adorably Awkward Bellamy Blake, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Childhood Friends, F/M, Mom!Clarke, Writer Bellamy Blake, but not really because they already know each other even though it's been years, coffee shop meet cute, fluff and then more fluff, that should really be a tag
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-30
Updated: 2020-05-30
Packaged: 2021-03-03 01:54:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,879
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24457036
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheWordsInMyHead/pseuds/TheWordsInMyHead
Summary: 15 years, that's how long it’s been since he last saw Clarke; they both grew up, made lives for themselves, but when she shows up at his office, intent on keeping a promise, it’s like no time has passed at all.Or: the one where Bellamy doesn't spend all his time thinking about Clarke, but he does spend a lot of time writing about Princess Clara, which is basically the same thing.
Relationships: Bellamy Blake/Clarke Griffin, Monty Green/Nathan Miller
Series: Art Mimics Life Mimics Art [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1766437
Comments: 13
Kudos: 148





	Paper Flowers Never Wilt

**Author's Note:**

> This started off as a simple fluff project to make me feel better after everything and then morphed into an entire universe because apparently that's what me and Meyers do when we are excited, like seriously, I have pages full of notes. 
> 
> There are at least 3 other stories coming, I think. A Clarke POV, a prequel of sorts, and future fic (or maybe more than one), but it might be a while because this isn’t my main focus. 
> 
> For now, please enjoy some adorably awkward Bellamy and fondly amused Clarke. It's the perfect medicine for all your Bellarke woes.

“There’s a package waiting for you out front,” Miller tells him, sticking his head inside the open door of his office.

Bellamy lifts one hand up while he continues typing with the other, a familiar gesture to anyone who works at their small publishing house. He's finally figured out what’s wrong with chapter 3 and he’s not willing to lose that train of thought for anyone; not that he actually has some idea how the Bard and Princess Clara might know each other.

“Have you finally figured out how to wrangle Orelia?” Miller asks once the sound of typing dwindles to a stop.

Taking one more look at the screen in front of him, Bellamy nods to himself in satisfaction and then swivels around on his chair to face the doorway. “You should know by now that authors don’t control characters, characters control authors.”

Miller grins in wry amusement at the reference to their old college professor. “Well you know, I’ve never been very good at doing things the _right_ way.”

It's easy to laugh now because that teacher was an asshole who liked to tell them that they’d never make it writing and they _did_ make it. While they aren’t ever going to be Harper Collins, he and Miller have both had relative success, him with his Audentes Fortuna Iuvat series and Miller with his graphic novels. Plus, they are gaining more promising submissions every day. Sure, they didn’t do things the conventional way, but he wouldn’t change that for anything. He's happy with what they have built here.

“What is it?” Bellamy asks, remembering the initial greeting now that he’s out of his writer's haze and fully back in the present.

“How am I supposed to know?” Miller retorts, grabbing the ball of elastic bands from the cabinet beside the door and throwing it at him. “I’m not your secretary.”

“And yet here you are, delivering messages...” Bellamy responds, tossing the ball from hand to hand, sarcasm heavy in his voice.

A scowl makes its way onto Miller’s face at the harmless teasing. “I was talking to Monty when the call came through and I thought I would just pass the message along. Save him the trip.”

Bellamy grins. He’s enjoyed watching Miller and Monty dance around each other for the last couple of months, possibly far more than he should. There's really not a lot going on in his life.

“Shut up,” Miller tells him, his scowl deepening as Bellamy's grin widens. “Go and get your package, your adoring fans await.”

“Shut up,” Bellamy quips back, getting out of his chair and pushing past his friend.

The number of people who love his stories is still equal parts astonishing and nerve-racking. While he cherishes every single piece of fan mail he’s ever gotten, there are actually several childish drawings lining his office walls that put a smile on his face whenever he sees them, there have also been a not-insignificant amount of letters and even one straight-up proposition that he won’t ever be able to forget.

“Miller said that there was something for me?” Bellamy calls out to Monty as he rounds the corner to the reception area, stopping suddenly once he sees what’s waiting for him. He doesn’t need to be told where it is.

Sitting proudly on the desk is the most bizarre bouquet of flowers he’s ever seen. Bright blues and deep dark purples, flowers of all different shapes. There’s something almost instantly endearing about it even if it’s weird as hell. He steps closer to look.

“Paper?” he asks Monty in surprise once he realizes they aren’t real.

“Yeah! Aren’t they cool?” he responds, all enthusiasm, “I’ve seen them made in videos before and they seem so complicated. I can’t imagine how long that many would have taken.”

“Did the person who dropped them off say anything?” Bellamy asks, a faint memory tugging at the back of his mind.

“No, she just dropped them and left. There’s a card though,” Monty informs him.

Bellamy steps forward hastily to look for the note, interested to know who left such a breathtaking gift and why. The little scrap of paper frees easily from the top of the bouquet.

Congrats on the book. I’ve got to say that it did feel strangely familiar though. -Princess Clara

Call me if you want to catch up. XXX-XXX-XXXX

Quickly, he scans the note again just to make sure he’s not mistaken and then a grin lights up his face so brightly that he’s thankful Miller isn’t around to witness it. He hasn’t seen Clarke Griffin in what must be close to 15 years at this point, but he can remember her as if he’d seen her just last summer.

Wild blond hair, fierce blue eyes, and a stubborn streak stronger than anyone else he’s ever known, she became a staple at the Blake house over the summers. Running around with Octavia, listening to his stories, and then recreating then when they weren’t up to her standards. And of course, making paper flowers. He has his phone out and is punching her number into it before he is fully aware of what he’s doing.

It’s only once the call starts ringing while he waits for her to connect that he starts to have doubts. She didn’t even sign her name.

“Hello,” she answers, and he feels his breath catch, she sounds just like he remembers. Her voice is a little deeper, a little rougher, but still completely, unmistakable Clarke.

“Clarke?” he questions stupidly even though he’s now 100% certain it’s her.

“Bellamy!” she responds and somehow, he can hear the smile in her voice.

“Hey,” he says, finally remembering how to act like a normal person, “your, uh, flower making skills have improved.”

She lets out a cheery laugh and instantly, he feels more at ease. This is Clarke, he knows Clarke. “Wow, and you told me those tissue paper ones were the prettiest flowers you’d ever seen.”

“Well obviously I hadn’t seen these yet,” he answers, trying for serious and failing if Monty's snort of dismay is anything to go by. He looks over at Monty and makes the decision to step outside before he embarrasses himself further. It’s not likely they haven't learned he’s a sap by know, but he still likes to at least pretend otherwise and he’s sure that talking with Clarke will blow his cover quickly. After all, those tissue paper flowers stayed on his desk long after Clarke stopped coming around.

“Obviously not,” she agrees wryly to which he lets out a huff of amusement.

“Since you seem to know what I’ve been up to, why don’t you even things out a little and tell me what you’ve been up to.”

“Smooth,” she says sarcastically, but he grins and shakes his head instead of cringing as is his normal response. Really, she sounds more fondly exasperated than anything when she continues.

He’s a little shocked to realize as he listens to her talk about her life, how much he missed her. It was easy to think of her, especially after they stopped seeing her, as Octavia's friend. The two of them were much closer in age, playing together, communicating in a way that he couldn’t just because he was that extra bit older. He was always there of course, watching them and entertaining them when necessary, but she didn’t seem like his friends.

She didn’t seem like a friend then, but now, looking back, it’s clear that she was. Despite the five years between them, she pushed him and challenged him, making him think outside the box, to be better.

“Thank you for the flowers,” he tells her earnestly, not even worried about cutting her off mid-story, just beyond grateful that she decided to reach out, “they are beautiful.”

“Well I did promise you beautiful flowers.”

He hesitates for a moment, thinking about a 10-year-old Clarke exasperated with his struggle planning a date and then horrified when he told her that her picturesque version of her parents' date wasn’t in the cards for him. “If I recall correctly, the deal was for flowers and a fancy dinner."

"I wouldn't want to be presumptuous. What if your girlfriend was offended? Flowers themselves are pretty innocuous."

Smiling to himself because that is such a Clarke thing to say, he answers. "No girlfriend... so, dinner?"

“Yes!” she responds instantly, “whenever you want… I do still owe you, and I’m not one to leave my debts unpaid.”

“Now?” Bellamy asks, checking the time quickly on his phone. “Or is that presumptuous? I don’t actually even know where you live nowadays.”

She laughs again, this time a little more nervous. “I’m actually around the corner from you, in a little café— hold on let me find the name.”

“Grounders,” he responds without hesitation, knowing instinctively that somehow, she would have found her way to his favorite writing spot.

“Yeah.”

“You’re actually here,” he says in disbelief, “you dropped off the flowers. Why didn’t you stick around and say hi?”

“I didn’t know if you’d be busy. It’s the middle of the day and it’s been—”

“Never mind, it doesn’t matter, I’ll come to you just give me a couple of minutes.”

For a few seconds, Bellamy contemplates going back inside to tell Monty that he’ll be gone for a while, but he dismisses it almost as quickly. If there’s one benefit to being the boss, and a writer, it’s that he’s allowed to work when he wants, where he wants. Also, he just doesn’t want to deal with Monty’s knowing looks; it’s going to be bad enough later.

And, the reality is that he just wants to see her. It's been 15 years, but now, an extra 15 minutes seems too long to wait.

As he walks the short distance, waving to the few familiar people he sees as he passes, Bellamy wonders how much she’ll have changed. She was 12 the last time he saw her when her grandparents suddenly decided that they wanted to be closer to their family and moved to the city. That’s a major period of life; she could look like a totally different person. She always wanted to dye her hair red, faintly he wonders if she ever got the opportunity to do it.

A chime overhead announces his presence as soon as he opens the door. Slowly, he scans the crowded shop, trying to find her; hoping that he’ll be able to spot her. While her back is to him, her hair is longer, her unruly curls fashioned into stylish waves, she’s still instantly recognizable to him when his eyes pass by her.

Bellamy walks over to her, nodding in greeting to Anya behind the counter, a stupid smile on his face, he’s sure. He's still a few tables way when she twists around in her seat to face the doorway, casually dropping her phone in her purse hanging off the edge of her chair as she goes.

Their eyes meet and it’s like no time has passed. She smiles at him and he smiles back or maybe it’s the other way around, but within those few seconds, as he walks the rest of the distance to her table, everything is familiar. Then she stands up, turning to face him fully and has brain short circuits because wow.

There's a brief awkward moment where he can’t decide whether to hug her. 15 years ago, he wouldn’t have hesitated for all that he might have grumbled about it. Now though, it seems like it might be crossing a line; they aren’t kids. He still hugs Octavia of course, but his heart doesn’t flutter when she smiles at him.

Thankfully, Clarke takes the decision out of his hands, moving forward and wrapping her arms around his neck like it’s been no time at all. His hands hang limply at his sides for a second too long as he tries to force his mind to catch up amidst the smell of her shampoo firmly in his space. Once he does, though, linking them behind her back, the familiarity sets back in. It's still different, the top of her head now reaches to his chin, but it’s not so overwhelming.

“Hi,” Clarke says stepping back, looking at him, “you haven't changed much. Except for the glasses, you finally decided to just embrace the professor look?”

Bellamy fiddles with the chunky glasses on his face, trying to resist the temptation to give her a similar appraising once over. “Yeah, I need them to see.”

“I know,” she responds sounding amused which she should be since he’s an idiot who’s needed these glasses since he was ten, a fact that she clearly remembers. “Do you want to order something? I already did before you called. They apparently have the best blueberry muffins ever, but I’m not totally sold yet.’

“They do,” he tells her and then at her confusion explains, “I’m here a lot. I tend to write here.”

“Oh, yeah I can see that,” she says, retaking her seat. He moves to take the one opposite her, wiping his ridiculously sweaty palms on his pants as he goes, just hoping that she doesn’t see.

“Yeah, they have great muffins,” he responds

She smiles at him, eyes twinkling, “I’ve heard.”

He’s saved from having to respond, probably with something else entirely idiotic, when Anya comes over carrying his usual order; a black coffee and a blueberry muffin. He mutters a quiet thanks as she places the plate in front of him and then moves to take the mug from her. She lets go, handing it off to him, and it’s all fine until his hand slips, spilling the coffee over the edge and onto his hand.

“Are you okay?” both of the women ask at the same time.

Nodding his head, Anya steps away with another curious look at him, but he pays that no mind. Methodically, he tries to wipe up the spill across the table, the burning across his hand the least of his worries right now. He needs to pull himself together. It's just Clarke for goodness sakes.

“You’re acting weird,” Clarke deadpans from the chair across from him.

Fiddling with his mug in front of him, Bellamy wills himself not to blush. “I am weird, you know that. One of my main characters decided to run off with the dragon guarding her tower rather than wait for a prince to show up.”

“First off, that’s not weird, that’s awesome and second, I’m pretty sure that was all Octavia.”

He can almost hear Octavia’s reproach in his mind from years past. _Dragons are cool Bell! They breathe fire and fly. Why wouldn't she want to become friends with the dragon? Then she could just fly away with him and go wherever she wants instead of waiting for a stranger! You always tell me strangers are dangerous! Why would the Princess want to be rescued and marry someone she doesn't know?_

“Which we will talk about in a second because really, Clara and Orelia? That was the extent of your imagination,” she continues, “but first, tell me why you are all twitchy?”

Rubbing the back of his neck awkwardly, Bellamy tries to think of a way out of this, but one more look at Clarke, the familiar determined set of her shoulders, and he just knows that there’s no way she’s going to let this go. “You’re not 12.”

“Okay...” she responds, grinning at him like she thinks he’s ridiculous, but wants to hang out with him anyway, “and you’re not 17.”

He looks at her, trying not to fixate on all attributes that he definitely didn’t notice last time he saw her and then looks away. “You don’t look like you’re 12.”

It takes her a second catch his meaning and then she throws her head back laughing. As he watches her, the sound of her giggles and snots both familiar and newly exciting, he feels his own embarrassment start to fade and a smile make its way onto his face.

When she looks back at him, face flushed, there’s a gleam to her eye. “You think I’m hot.”

Choking a little on the air in his throat, Bellamy pauses unsure of what to say. It's not like she isn’t right. He looks at her more fully now, noting the brightness in her blue eyes, highlighted by the subtle makeup around them, the curve of her jaw, the fullness of her lips, she's definitely hot; it’s just not something he was going to casually say. “That’s not how I was going to say it.”

“You think I’m pretty,” she rephrases teasingly and he just groans good-naturedly, finally taking a sip of his drink.

“You are pretty,” he tells her back, a little more comfortable now that he knows she doesn’t find him creepy, “I just wasn’t expecting it.”

She scowls at him and the rest of his unease falls away, she’s still Clarke and he can still read her just as well as he could back then. “Not like that,” he assures her with a playful eye roll.

He watches fascinated as the corner of her lips turn up while she battles to keep the mock annoyance on her face until finally, she lets it go with a huff. “So I’ve just been a gangly preteen in your head for the last decade and a half?”

“No...” he says slowly. The truth is that the line between Clarke and Clara has faded for him a lot over the years to the point where more often than not, they are the same person in his head. Clara in the first book was 20, not quite the same age as Clarke would have been when he wrote it, but pretty close and still clearly an adult. She’s 24 in the one he’s working on now, definitely an adult. He writes her like she’s an adult, but for some reason his brain never made to connect. That feels strange to explain though.

“No...” Clarke prompts him gently, pulling him out of his head with ease that he’s not sure she should just have.

Contemplating the merits of the truth against not sounding unhinged, Bellamy shrugs, and then goes with the truth. “Clara is in her early twenties.”

“Oh right,” she says simply like his strange logic makes perfect sense to her. For a second, he wonders if they are going to be stuck on this weird line of conversation forever, but then a mischievous grin takes over her face. “So really, Clara? You couldn’t have come up with something better... something a little less on the nose?”

He laughs; he’s got that question about Octavia and Orelia countless times. For some reason, no one has ever really asked him about Clara’s inspiration, maybe they just don't have as easy access to the connection. He tells Clarke the same thing that he told everyone else. “I didn’t see the point in not being obvious. The story was inspired by the two of you. I was never trying to hide it.”

“Still, most people aren’t so open about that,” she argues back with a grin, “you basically highjacked a story acted out by a 10 and 9-year-old.”

“Hey! I directed that fine production, thank you,” he responds, laughing. “Really though, I’m not most people. Arcadia isn’t just any publishing house.”

“No, of course not.”

“And I also—” he pauses, not quite sure how to phrase the other half of his reason, the part that he’s never actually shared before. “It was my way of thanking you. I don’t think any of this happens without you.”

She shakes her head, not willing to take credit even where she deserves it. “I didn’t do anything.”

“You told me my stories were better.”

“Your stories _were_ better!”

Bellamy ducks his head shyly, not anymore sure how to take the compliment now than he was when she gave it to him all those years ago. “They were the same stories,” he protests lightly.

“Maybe,” Clarke relents, “but the way you told them made it all seem so possible. Like the magical worlds were just waiting for us.”

“I never did get them written down for you,” Bellamy remembers a little sadly. It was her last summer there, not that either of them had known it. She had corned him a week before she left, demanding that he write them down before she left so that she would have them all year long. “I told you that you could hear them next summer, but then...”

“Then I never came back,” she finishes for him, the same twinge of sadness to her tone. The fact that he _did_ start to write them down that year, only for her not to return to see them just makes it all worse. He’s about to tell her that he did do them for her, not sure if she would have seen his little anthology set, but then her face brightens, distracting him. “I did eventually get your stories though. Your Audentes Fortuna Iuvat series is amazing! I only had to wait for a little over a decade.”

“How did you find it?” he asks her curiously, “I presume that you’re not still reading about princess and dragons in your free time.” He’s proud of his book and he worked to make sure it was interesting enough for adults reading them out loud, but she definitely isn’t his target demographic.

She bites her lip, a little shy for the first time. “Actually, I have a kid who’s obsessed with it. She showed it to me.”

Bellamy sincerely hopes that his surprise doesn’t show on his face. She'd be 28 if he’s remembering correctly, it makes sense for her to have a kid. Really, that’s where his mind should have jumped instantly.

“That’s great,” he says enthusiastically, meaning every word, “how old?”

“She just turned 9,” Clarke tells him and he can see the fondness clearly in her eyes.

In what he’s sure is the most unsubtle move ever, he checks her finger for a ring. While she mentioned that she was worried about offending a potential girlfriend that he might have, he never thought to ask the same question in return.

“Just ask what you want to ask, Bellamy,” she cuts off his thoughts with an amused grin.

“Does she have a Dad?” he asks, cringing a little at his own awkwardness.

Clarke, for her part, seems to be enjoying it immensely. “That is how children are made.”

He lets out a groan, allowing his face to fall forward so that it’s resting against his arms on the table. She laughs fully and then decides to take pity on him. “I’m single. That was the real question, right?”

“Yes,” he answers, lifting his head up just enough to see her.

Grinning at him, she explains more. “It’s just me and Madi. I was fostering her for about a year and then we finalized her adoption almost 6 months ago”

“That’s awesome,” Bellamy tells her, righting himself back in his chair.

“That I adopted a kid or that I’m single?”

“Both.”

From there the conversation flows easily. She tells him about her life, Madi, her job, her friends; he tells her about how he got into writing, the creation of the publishing house and what Octavia has been up to. Back and forth they go, talking about everything and nothing until he looks around and suddenly the sunlight is shining brightly through the window and the café is basically empty.

When he turns back to Clarke, she has a look on her face which tells him she has also just realized how long they’d been talking. “You need to go?”

“I don’t need to,” she tells him but there’s a hesitation to her voice that lets him know that she doesn’t really believe that.

“But you should?”

“It’s getting late and Madi does better when I’m home before dark…” she hesitates for a second, brushing some muffin crumbs into a napkin, “her parents were killed in a car crash coming home one night.”

His eyes widen in horror as he stands up from the table; it’s not like that’s really a surprise, parents dying happens, he knows that better than most, maybe, but it never becomes easier to hear. “Geez, that’s...”

“Yeah, I know,” Clarke responds with pain in her eyes, sliding her purse off her chair and onto her shoulder. “She’s fine, she’s spending the day with Raven and probably having a blast. Really, at this point it’s as much for me as for her.”

Looking at her, he can just tell that she’s a good Mom. The way she looks when she talks about Madi, the satisfaction she takes in making sure she's comfortable. It’s not what he would have pictured for her if he had taken the time to think about her life, but it fits well. Thinking about it, caring for people has always been her instinct.

“But still,” he says, pulling a few bills out of his pocket to leave on the table.

She smiles at him like she’s grateful that he understands, when really, why wouldn’t he. It’s only then he realizes that everything with his Mom and Octavia would have occurred after she stopped coming around and that he never explicitly explained what happened when they were talking. For a second, he considers tells her the whole story, but it’s not short and she really does have to go.

“I’m sorry,” she tells him as he holds the door open for her to walk through.

“For what?” he questions bemused, walking through the door after her and then stopping to stand on the sidewalk beside her.

She squints up at him through the sun and he is once again hit by how breathtakingly gorgeous she is. “For cutting this short.”

“Clarke,” he says with a laugh once her words register, “you drove what, two hours, to see me, you’re more than fine. Really, you could have just called.”

“That didn’t seem epic enough after so long... I needed to go big.”

He just shakes his head fondly; she really didn’t need to do much at all to get his attention. All he wanted was to see her. Which apparently wasn’t even part of her plan, he remembers. “And yet you didn’t even stick around long enough to see me when you dropped the flowers off.”

“It seemed arrogance to assume you’d want to see me,” she tells him with a shrug.

“So what?” Bellamy teases, “you just planned to wait around the corner, hoping that I actually went to get them, saw the card, and was eager enough to call you right away? You could have been waiting for hours. I’m really not normally that on top of things, you caught me on a rare day of competency.”

“Wow, you must really think a lot of my dedication,” she tells him with a grin, “there was an art exhibit I was going to check out.”

“Oh, we could have totally gone to that—” he starts to say before she cuts him off.

“This is exactly what I hoped would happen.” This time when she hugs him, he allows himself to savor the feel of her pressed up against him. He wraps his arms around her fully; she tucks her head into the crook of his neck, holding on like she doesn’t want to let go. He doesn’t want her to let go.

“We’ll do this again,” she says, finally stepping back.

It's on the tip of his tongue to remind her that well this was great, it definitely doesn’t count as the fancy dinner date he was promised, but he holds back. He'll call her in a few days and remind her, it’s a good excuse to talk to her again. Instead, he just smiles at her, “preferably before 15 years have passed.”

“Definitely before then.” She laughs, exactly as he had hoped, and then reaches into her bag to grab her keys.

“You need to go.”

Biting her lip, she nods. “I need to go.”

“We’ll talk soon,” Bellamy promises, resisting the urge to hug her again.

“Yes! Okay, goodbye!”

“Bye,” he repeats, watching as she gets into her car and then waving to her through the window when she drives past him. For a split second, Bellamy considers going straight back to the offices, but when he gets to the turnoff, he just keeps walking, wrapped up in his thoughts.

\------------------------------------------------------------

  
“You had another delivery,” Monty tells him as soon as he walks through the door just over an hour later. Bellamy looks up startled, having expected both him and Miller to have left hours ago.

“Really?” It’s not unheard of for him to get something twice in one day, but it’s incredibly rare. He really doesn’t have that many fans. Although, he guesses Clarke isn’t really a fan, at least not like that anyways. Madi is though, he should have offered to give Clarke a signed copy to take with her. “Where?”

Monty tips his head towards the back wall. Bellamy follows his direction, looking over to the counter where the bouquet now rests proudly. He’s just about to turn back to Monty and ask for better clarification when he spots the new addition. Sitting beside the vase is a single simple paper rose.

Stepping forward with a grin on his face, Bellamy eagerly picks up the flower, careful not to tear the delicate edges. There’s a note attached to the steam, just a scrap of torn paper like she didn’t expect to leave a note. _I still owe you that fancy dinner._

“Who’s the mystery girl?” Miller asks, seeming to show up out of nowhere while he was distracted by Clarke’s gift.

“No one,” he tells both of them, not wanting to get into it right now.

“Striking blue eyes, golden hair and a wit sharper than any sword” Miller says, repeating Bellamy’s own character description to him, “that was Princess Clara.”

Bellamy just hums in agreement, choosing to focus on the flower in his hand while he waits for Miller to get it out of his system. He can see the hint of Grounders’ logo in the corner of one petal. She must have done it after they said goodbye.

“You’re going on a date with Princess Clara,” Miller continues on with what Bellamy’s sure is a smirk.

Putting the flower down, Bellamy turns his attention to the men in front of him. “I’m going on a date with Clarke.”

“Is there a difference?” Monty sniggers to which Bellamy sends a glare because really, Monty is supposed to be above this.

Instinctively, Bellamy wants to say yes because for as much as they’ve meshed together in his head, there is a difference. One is a badass princess who lives in a fictional land and tries to save the world with her magic while the other is an equally badass Mom who volunteers at hospitals and makes beautiful paper flowers. Yet, he stops himself short.

They are different, yes, but they are also the same. All the things that he loves about Clara are characteristics he transported from his memories of Clarke. Her courage, her care. The way that she always rises to the occasion and never back downs. Even back then, he knew that Clarke would grow up to be a remarkable woman.

He's got his phone out and is dialing before another second has passed. “I think I’ve spent the last decade unconsciously writing you love letters in the form of children’s stories.”

“Well as long as we are clear on that,” Clarke responds with amusement in her tone after a second.

“Isn’t that weird?”

“Didn’t we already establish that you are weird?” she teases and then when he still doesn’t say anything, floundering as he thinks about everything, she continues, “maybe, but it’s not like I was seven when you wrote them and honestly, it’s just flattering.”

“Flattering?”

“Yeah. You obviously love both the characters, but the way you write them is different; it’s definitely a different kind of love. When I read it I didn’t know that you’d be interested but I suspected enough that I was able to convince myself to make 2 dozen paper flowers and show up at your door with no warning after 15 years of nothing… which is a good thing, I think?”

“A great thing,” Bellamy responds, letting out a breath, “sorry I just had a moment. I freak out sometimes.... hi.”

“Really?” Clarke says and he can almost hear the eye-roll in her voice, “I never would have guessed.”

He grins, ignoring Miller and Monty’s amused looks. “Haha, you’re so funny.”

“I try,” she tells him. “So was this just an unprompted freak out or...”

Laughing at how well she knows him, he answers, “Miller made some comment and it got me thinking, too much apparently.”

“Nah, it was about time you caught up,” she tells him cheekily.

“Gee thanks.” As much as he tries to prevent it, a chuckle escapes him when she lets out a snort. It only once her giggles subside that he finally registers the steady hum of her car in the background. “You’re driving,”

“I am. Almost halfway.”

“Are you okay to be talking?” he asks, thinking about the number of cars on the highway and the danger, of Madi and her history.

Her voice is softer when she answers, “yeah I’m good, didn’t even have to touch the phone to answer it.”

He lets out a silent sigh of relief. “I got the flower, by the way, thank you.”

“That was actually the call I was expecting.”

_Yeah,_ he thinks, _that call would have made more sense._ “I was planning to hold you to dinner already.”

“I figured, but it never hurts to be sure… also, I just wanted to see you one more time before I left even if it was just for a couple minutes.”

“I’ll come to you next time. Just let me know when,” he tells her, part of him hoping that he doesn’t sound over-eager, but the rest of him not caring at all. Apparently, he’s been waiting for this for years, there’s really no reason to try and play it cool now.

“Give me a few days and I’ll plan something suitable ostentatious.”

“Perfect.” Honestly, he can’t wait and he never thought he’d think that about a stuffy formal dinner. When she mentioned it all those years ago, he distinctly remembers thinking that it sounded like a horrible date, but with Clarke sitting across from him, he can’t imagine it being anything less than spectacular. “I should let you go.”

“Yeah probably,” she responds after a moment, clearly more focused on driving than their conversation. “I’ll call you later with plans, okay?”

“Sounds great.”

“Guess you finally know how to end that book of yours,” Miller tells him with a smirk as soon as he has hung up the phone.

Bellamy admires the rose in his hand once more and then turns his attention to Miller, a bright grin stretched across his face after, “Yes, I do.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! 
> 
> Also I think I finally figured out this tumblr thing... kind of, if you want to check it out [Link](https://the-words-in-my-head-12.tumblr.com/post/619556031261999104/paper-flowers-never-wilt-15-years-thats-how)


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